Emina Hamzic

A microbiology graduate student looking to find an internship position or full-time position in laboratory research starting in June 2024. My goal is to gain experience and adapt to working at a biotech company. I'm a highly-motivated employee with desire to take on new challenges with a strong worth ethic, adaptability and exceptional interpersonal skills. Adept at working effectively unsupervised and quickly mastering new skills. Ambitious, career-focused job seeker, looking to obtain an entry-level position to help launch career while achieving company goals.

Every student in the AMB program gets assigned a personal project for the entire school year. In microorganisms, desferrioxamine B is a hydroxamate siderophore which sequesters iron from an extracellular environment to use for important processes such as oxygen transport, structural integrity of the cell membrane and DNA synthesis. Desferrioxamine B is used to produce the clinical drug, Desferal which is used as an iron chelator in numerous medical applications such as blood transfusions. It is often used to treat genetic disorders, metal poisoning and hemochromatosis. The biosynthetic enzyme, DesB, is a N-hydroxylase that is present in Streptomyces sviceus, which is responsible for catalyzing the synthesis of desferrioxamine B. DesB contains a wider substrate usage than other phylogenetically related N-hydroxylases. Desferal is prone to shortages due to high dosages required for treatment and the low efficiency of the desferrioxamine B production protocol. After cloning the gene into a yeast vector, the expression and purification of the protein is used to develop a culture-based colorimetric assay to detect N-hydroxylase activity. The goal of the project is to perform directed evolution so that DesB can optimally N-hydroxylate a wide variety of substrates.